Things I cannot tell you
by Kayo-San
Summary: To be a collection of interconnected stories with the Goblin and the Grim Reaper as the focus since there's not enough of their actual bromance anywhere. Their interactions, hopefully, a slow build to Kim Shin/Wang Yeo.
1. Living as a reaper

The life of a reaper is a lonely, misunderstood one.

* * *

Their paths crossed that year he saw for himself the creation of a miscellaneously omitted person. At the scene of a rash, unexplainable hit-and-run, the patch of blood on an icy path wherein a mother and her unborn, unnamed child should have died.

The Goblin, dashing as always, stood at the spot with his hands stuffed in his pockets, but at the very least, he was taking responsibility for his meddling.

"Ya! You can't do this all the time."

"Well, I don't, do I, dear reaper?"

He scowls reflexively at the affectionate form of address as he turns.

"I have to go home and file a lot of paperwork for this."

"I know. That's why I stayed so you would have the ability to say under 'Reason for deviation' that it was 'Involvement of a goblin'."

Before the goblin can prattle on more, the grim reaper grumbles and disappears in a black afterimage.

And he had to file two reports, in that year alone his direct juniors, just ten of them found an extra seven deaths. An unnatural amount against the order of the world. So in that year, they witnessed two kinds of miracles. Lives saved and lives taken.

Dokkaebi doesn't know like they do, that the balance of life and death has to be kept. The Jeoseung Saja who keeps a watch over the district that the goblin inexplicably frequents holds his tongue and deals with the paperwork indirectly created by the soft-hearted God.

There's no free lunch, after all.

Was it supposed to be unfair? That goblin who carelessly used his powers here and there was to have it extracted back in some way or other.

It's not like the reaper community doesn't understand, everyone knows the story of the Goblin and of an eternity of suffering.

Even they too, do not desire to see the children die. But it happens – the innocent and the kind die more easily than most. It would have been an easier decision if the seven were evil people. But how could anyone have made a judgement on the pregnant mother as she lay bleeding out on the ice?

His juniors complain at their next gathering while his classmates only sympathise quietly.

The amount of paperwork they file for their extra deaths is meagre compared to his re-documenting of the MOP.

"Now though, sunbae, you have two MOPs, don't you?"

He nods while drinking his fruit juice.

Everyone winces. He tries for a smile.

"At least the child will get to grow up."

His juniors look properly chastised.

Before they begin eating, he excuses himself. It's a chicken restaurant, there's nothing for him to eat, anyway.

And someone else will then pick up the tab for his juice.

* * *

As he steps out of the store, the female reaper – the only one, comes after him.

"Sunbae!"

He looks back, before asking, "Yes?"

She hands him a plastic bag. "Sorry, we came to a chicken restaurant knowing you were vegetarian."

He waves her off. "It is okay, they make good juice here."

"Take the side dishes home at least. They also make good radish kimchi."

He smiles, hesitating a moment before patting her on the shoulder.

"I will eat well."

The junior reaper, admittedly pretty, is more importantly earnest.

He's not sure, but there's something familiar about her.

She disappears back into the store, and he makes a lazy circle around the neighbourhood before reaching his apartment.

_It's about time to think about moving again. _

He waits for the Goblin to show up, because his goblin is reliable that way.

"You were thinking of leaving again."

He smiles.

"And you will never know if I'm thinking for real, or if I just wanted to summon you."

The grim reaper follows this up with, "Dokkaebi. I'm actually going to move out this time. My lease is expiring this week. I just called you to tell you that in the meantime before they settle if I keep my jurisdiction, you can't save anyone else. Because my juniors won't know how to file the paperwork."

He takes a little pleasure in how the goblin gives him a baleful look.

"You could have just called me, you know."

"I don't have a phone."

"Then get one."

He waves the goblin off as he continues packing his things.

"It's an extra monthly cost. I don't earn that much, Dokkaebi. We are always saving up for the next lease, for our next meal, for something else we will have to buy, like the living humans. Paying for a phone when I have no one else to call is pointless."

He looks up at the abnormally quiet goblin.

"Ah. But what's the point of saying this. You don't understand anyway."

* * *

Of course, I should be studying. But there really isn't enough fanfiction for these two. So here you go, a series I want to continue.

Kayo


	2. Moving in a cohabiting game

Because if you know someone and they need help. Because time is relative but still, nine years is a long minimum time of acquaintanceship. Because… you're friends and immortals.

* * *

"Sorry."

The reaper finishes his packing just as the goblin breaks the silence.

"What for?"

"For being a bad friend."

He laughs, a small laugh, looking gently at the goblin.

"I didn't know you saw me as a friend."

In the small apartment that just fits one grim reaper, the extra presence of the goblin is confusingly easy to overlook. Maybe because they're too comfortable with each other. That's but one reason, of course, but an important one.

"Maybe after the first ten years, I started to see you as a friend."

Jeoseung Saja hums, "And this is our?"

"Twenty-three years, eleven months and fourth day of acquaintanceship."

"You only keep count because you do not forget. We are very different, goblin. Grim Reapers who have had to commit a grave sin to become cannot remember anything."

There are things they say and then do not say.

_If you were not a friend, Dokkaebi, why would I bother suffering through all the paperwork when you create MOPs?_

Since they hear each other's thoughts anyway, not saying them out is just an excuse to pretend they do not think.

"When are you moving out?" _How about moving in with me?_

"Like I said, my lease runs out soon." _Are you serious in your offer?_

"Ah…" _Yeah, I am quite, Reaper._

The goblin stretches out his hand.

"Come on, then. I'll open a door for both of us. You can move out tonight and claim back some of your lease as well."

The reaper hesitates at both the taking the hand and the accepting of the offer.

"I'll sign a contract with you, if you're that concerned," the dokkaebi cajoles.

_It's more paperwork, but if making it official makes you more comfortable then._

"Thank you. I'll think about it," his mind carefully blanked.

The goblin disappears into the night and the grim reaper falls onto his bed, mind turning in its own freedom.

It's an offer, an alternative and attractive offer of staying in a district he's already comfortable in and living with the main source of trouble here.

* * *

Having been about for about twenty-four years, the grim reaper knows in his mind's eye the shape and location of the goblin's home. Because they're friends and he's crashed the place in between leases.

And because he's a civilised person.

_Ah, not living. But a person. Right?_

_Should I go back?_

His packed bags and reclaimed rent and deposit in a thin paper envelop in his coat pocket, the whole pitiful ensemble at the doors of the goblin's home

Because he's a civilised being he's coming by the front door rather than just teleporting in through the door.

He raises a hand to the wooden door because there's no doorbell in sight and knocks.

There's no reply and he sighs, turning to leave.

Just before he can take a step away, he's pulled into the house. With a gentle tug he stumbled backward into what would become home.

The goblin, smiling and looking like the cat that caught the canary.

"Deok Hwa-ah. This is our new tenant."

_This is my nephew. Quick, a name for us to put on the contract?_

"I'm Wang Yeo, nice to meet you."

While the younger boy, probably not even ten looks over him curiously, the blasted goblin is gaping at him.

_Wang Yeo?_

The grim reaper smiles, bending down to meet the eye level of the child. He's always had a soft spot for children.

_It came to mind suddenly. Don't mind it, dokkaebi. All Grim Reapers go by Kim anyway._

The master of the house clears his throat.

"Yes, Deok Hwa-ah, this is Wang Y-Yeo. My friend. But you can just call him uncle. He'll live in the room down the hall for a while."

"Uncle-down-the-hall, how long will you stay here? Will you stay as long as my uncle?"

The grim reaper ruffles the child's hair briefly.

"Maybe. I'll be here for a while. How old are you?"

_He's five, come on, get your stuff in, we still need to sign the contract and other things._

"I'm six!"

_Okay, he's six._

The grim reaper bobs his head.

"Okay, I need to bring in all my things. Deok Hwa, I look forward to getting to know you."

The child smiles brightly, before running to open the doors to help him.

* * *

They're playing a cohabitation and child rearing game of some sort.

"You said that your name was Wang Yeo."

The grim reaper nods, absently, filling more paperwork in the living room because the goblin wrote a comprehensive and binding home contract, and he also has to declare his residential status to his higher-ups.

"Is it your name from your past?"

He shrugs, "It came to mind. But all reapers also take the tea of Lethe, we are not created to remember our past. I suppose more than the possibility of a past life, the name just seemed right in the moment."

_Eh, a take-care-of-Deok Hwa clause?_

"I see. I knew a Wang Yeo."

_He's the last branch of my retainer's family. I have to take care of him._

"Do I remind you of him?"

_Alright. I'll file a protection order with the higher-ups then and see if they'll let me off._

"You're nothing like him."

The air is crackling with something and it makes the jeoseung saja a little dizzy.

"I didn't mean to pry."

_The rest of the contract is fine. I'll sign once I get the approval stamp from the higher-ups._

"No…" The atmosphere lets up. "I started it. Don't worry. And the contract is auxiliary. This is your home now."

"If it's an unhappy past, then it's better not to remember."

The goblin hums, an evasive answer.

"What is your name, then, dokkaebi? Your original name, your alias, your current name, or the words that fit you now?"

As he presses the manila envelope sealed, ready to be delivered to the central headquarters, the air is just slightly warm and the goblin's eyes are glinting in the light from the expensive chandelier.

"Shin. Kim Shin. That was, and always will be my name. Until I die."

He moves his head slowly in assent.

"Kim Shin… it's a cool name."

Shin is watching him intently, as if looking for a reaction.

_Is something wrong?_

The goblin only leans back, a mixture of disappointment and relief in his eyes.

_You don't recognise it?_

The newly christened 'Yeo' shakes his head.

_Like I said, Grim Reapers do not remember. _

"If you're relieved, then, Wang Yeo must have been your enemy."

_I guess you can say that._

There's a sorrow in those old eyes that he cannot comprehend. The weight of an extra six hundred years.

Yeo can only quietly retreat to the room that is now his.

* * *

Deviations beginning to multiply and diverge now. All roads lead to Rome though.

Kayo


	3. Cutting the string of the past

A morning after, a past erased reclaimed hoped for and also hated.

* * *

He said that his name was Wang Yeo and that stole the air right out of his lungs. Not in a pleasant way, just a breathless, hopeless manner unbefitting a guardian.

Before he could help himself, the goblin is already radiating, waiting and wound and ready to ease the grief in his chest that has ached for –

_Oh. A random name?_

The grim reaper who is kneeling on the floor and smiling at his retainer-to-be, his nephew, thinks back, _Yeah._

And Kim Shin knows that this is either a huge coincidence or a sick deity's even more sick joke.

He busies their thought channel with things he could just have easily said, because he cannot even blame the grim reaper for being an amnesiac.

_But if, just if the huge crime he committed, _then it would be correct, surely the king committed a huge crime against them?

But if Minister Park's involvement was to be a mitigating measure, maybe the young king would have gone to the in between?

His head is beginning to ache again, he cannot dismiss the image of the young King who visited his younger sister in secret and cannot find an image of his grown-up form.

Because the child king is frozen in the form he was in the day he ordered his faithful General, Kim Shin, to his death as a traitor.

Because also, he did not stay alive and therefore could not keep the promise to make sure the King did not die.

Because mostly, the sword gifted to him and embedded in his heart now was unable to cut down Minister Park.

These are his thoughts that he cannot broadcast, that he has to guard within his hearts for, for all that he knew not only had the reaper no memories, the reaper could just have had the misfortune of being named Wang Yeo.

Somewhere along the way the resident grim reaper had left for his room.

_Just as well. He needs to settle in._

Thoughts he does not need to expend effort to hold. Not that the reaper could hear him when they were so far apart either way.

Or at least, he thought so.

The incorporeal sword that sticks out of his chest keeps him awake.

He cannot touch it or feel it, only the gap in his chest where his heart is and the bone-deep weariness and aching longing for a future that he cannot bare to breathe life to.

Chairman Yoo has chided him enough. He cannot traumatise Deok Hwa with his thoughts before the child has even begun to mature.

_Ah. I'm alone. Again._

He tries to relax into his bed. For the first time in years, he's been unsettled and he cannot soothe his own heart.

A conundrum and realisation of the emptiness of his life – or not, just the perception when he takes stock of his life.

Beyond saving other people and serving as their inspiration, all things he cannot take full credit for anyway, he has nothing to his name itself.

Secretary Kim tried numerous times to get him gainful employment, he tried selling perfume, even stockings at some point but everything fell through because he's a god.

A god who can summon gold, so why could work ever have mattered, that is. Not that he's a god of selling merchandise. They should just make him the brand ambassador since he doesn't age.

Deok Hwa who is going to school is diligent about enough, Chairman Yoo is in the silver years of his life. His family is safe, perhaps not flourishing in the traditional sense, but are they not okay?

_Isn't this okay?_

How about a make up advertisement? He could sell anti-aging products and everyone would buy it.

_Or maybe that's a big problem._

He fell asleep to the tumultuous thoughts in his head and argued himself into slumber.

* * *

The next morning, Deok Hwa is amazingly awake before he is.

When he yawns coming out of his room, his nephew is eating a breakfast of French toast and fruit.

_Fruit?_

"Something smells good, Deok-ah."

The kid grins at him.

"Samchon-down-the-hall cooked French toast for me."

"I see… has he gone off to work?"

The kid hops off his chair, sliding another plate out from the cupboard and plating up a slice of French toast (_for him?)_ with fruit.

Before he can complain, the child has set the table with cutlery and tells him to "Eat, samchon! Wang Yeo-samchon has already left for work."

The child is smirking at him and his lack of gainly employment; the child who broadcasts his thoughts and he who is purposefully listening to him.

"You're mocking me, aren't you, Deok Hwa-ah?"

With an impish smile, the boy finishes his raspberries and races back into the kitchen with his plates _(to do the washing?)_, "Am not!"

It's almost as if the child knows he reads his mind via eye contact.

Kim Shin eats absentmindedly, even the bird food and is caught off guard when Deok Hwa pops up beside him.

"Samchon, I know what I want to do when I grow up."

The goblin arches his eyebrow.

"And?"

"I'm going to be a typical third-generation chaebol heir."

He chokes on a grape as Deok Hwa's eyes widen and he runs for water.

Holding a hand up as the child tries to feed him water, the child almost wails, "Samchon, don't die on me! Harabeoji will kill me!"

With another harsh cough he dislodges the grape.

Hissing at it, he reaffirms his belief.

"Fruits are not fit for eating. Meat is still the best."

And the kid rolls his eyes, "Samchon!"

Moving on, the kid details his life plan, "I'm going to go to school, score well, graduate, start working at Harabeoji's firm and then I'll become a managing director with a fat salary and no work and then I'll retire and join the advisory board and get an even fatter salary and that's it!"

Shin finishes breakfast with the cup of water and gives the boy a patronising head pat.

"Is that what your harabeoji said?"

"That's what uncle-down-the-hall said I could do if I wanted."

Shin laughs.

_So that's how you're playing the game?_

"Is that what you really want to do?"

Deok Hwa gives him a look of incomprehension.

"I'll think about it again. In class if I'm bored. See you later, samchon."

* * *

_What did you see in the child's past when you took his hand last night, grim reaper who holds the name of my king?_

_He was a child before, a devoted child. Ah, but I cannot tell you these things and violate the sanctity of the past._

"You did not tell me that Wang Yeo was the name of the king you served. He must have been the one to kill you, then."

The reaper's voice is calm, neither sympathetic nor prying.

He struggles to not react.

"I did not know you were home."

"You did not hear me fail three times at the keypad?"

_Am I not welcome?_

"No, I was just lost in my own thoughts. Do not mind me. Thank you for breakfast."

The reaper throws after his retreating figure, "If it soothes you any, I was created about three hundred years old. There is no way I would be your king, even if I was called Wang Yeo."

_You could have been reincarnated a few cycles and then become a reaper, could you not? Murder is hardly a crime great enough. _The goblin's speculation is part hopeful and part hateful, coming through the freshly closed door.

Wang Yeo flinches, and the reply is out of his thoughts before he can even think. _And you are on this earth made to wander because you have never killed an ant?_

There's a sort period of silence.

_Sorry. _Both of them regret it at the same time, the goblin yanking his door open to face his housemate.

The grim reaper turns as the goblin raises a hand to the back of his neck in embarrassment.

"No, sorry. It's not that I want you to be the reincarnation of the king that killed me."

"I cannot even own my past, Kim Shin."

The dokkaebi crossed the stretch of the living room, resting a cautious hand on the grim reaper whom he knows hates touch.

"Your past doesn't matter to me. Even if, and even if you were him reincarnated, what is reincarnation beyond a sick joke? Reincarnations are not the same."

* * *

A double standard at play. You search out your sister and yet your enemy… You ought to have said from the get go that he was not your enemy.

Kayo


	4. Settling into complacency

Getting comfortable with an extra presence in the house is a new experience.

* * *

_What do I do about Deok Hwa? _

He's not sure what to do with the report card filled with numerous red marks, convoluted scribbles like scrawls in anger and _what sort of mark is an alphabet?_

"What's happened?" comes his housemate's intrusive question as he sidles up behind his plush sofa in their living room.

The grim reaper is drinking another of his strawberry yoghurt, sipping it through a dastardly plastic straw.

"You know that can't be recycled and won't biodegrade either right?"

In an act of petty and peevish frustration, he floats the straw out of its spot stabbed through the foil seal of the yoghurt bottle.

Wang Yeo pouts momentarily before grabbing the straw from where it floats.

Kim Shin feels in that instant, the icy cold of the reaper's energy to his burning blue flames, the cold seeps into his hand and he yelps.

Immediately the feeling recedes – his housemate's hands are off both his drink and his straw, his eyes on him in concern and Shin beats an embarrassed retreat into his bedroom.

"Ya! You haven't told me what's wrong either."

"You! Go and talk to Deok Hwa. And tell him to study!"

The grim reaper grumbles quietly but the goblin knows he's been heard.

It's part of their growing aches and pains to begin living together with each other when they are both supernatural beings. Shin knows that if not for the adverse impact of concentrated death energies, most grim reapers would want a smaller area of responsibility.

How was he, a dokkaebi supposed to live under the same roof as a being of death? Their energies clash, and perhaps maybe that would be why it was okay.

If they had run a grim reaper boarding house where death followed then that would have been less than ideal.

The Jeoseung Sajas all feel cold, while he feels hot. They were an absence rather than presence. He cannot help it if the feeling of his energy around his feels like a direct affront and an attack.

It does not help that his saja, Wang Yeo, is the most senior one in the municipality.

They're immortals and tens of years don't make much of a difference, but six hundred years ought to have given him a clearer advantage.

He doesn't show it, or he tries not to let it show, but Yeo is not supposed to be able to match him in control over inanimate objects.

_Then again, I can't control memories like he can, either. So it's all a moot point._

_As in, you want me to plant that control in Deok Hwa?_

The intrusive thought again comes through the door.

He throws a pillow against it because it is not thought-proof.

_I thought Goblins could conjure up whatever they liked. You can create your own door, or if not, another house for me._

"I thought you all aren't supposed to meddle with humans like that?"

"It's part of the contract we signed, the higher-ups said that the child's fate is already set, so whatever we do won't matter."

_I also thought you all could see peoples' future._

"Then never mind. Just… talk to him or something. He's smoking and it drives me mad when I'm in the house. And his grades. His report card came back. I can't make head or tails of the numbers but it's all in red."

"The card on the living room table? It's all As and Bs, dokkaebi. He's doing fine."

The door opens again because _(this is a common sight now, isn't it?) _he felt like it and he could see the grim reaper from his position on the bed; sitting in a chair placed at the door.

Idly, Kim Shin levitates the chair, immortal being and all into the room.

"Well the things I can read though, don't sound good. Look at the conduct grade and look at the teacher's remarks there on my table."

Yeo flips through the little plastic book, making a humming sound.

_Do not expect me to allow you into my room like this, dokkaebi._

_Wouldn't dream of it._

"What do you think?"

The reaper looks at him and cocks his head aside. "Honestly, apart from the smoking, though that's a big problem, he's just acting like a kid. You have time. You can wait for your retainer to mature more, can't you?"

The goblin rolls his eyes.

"What about the bit about him dying his hair and being a nuisance in class?"

With a dreadful sigh, he releases the plastic straw he's using to drink _(Another bottle?) _his strawberry, artificially sweetened yoghurt 'beverage'.

"I don't think dying his hair is a big problem. If his blond hair bothered you that much, it's quite easy to change it to another colour that will make him want his natural brown back. Easy enough for a goblin to do."

_What like magic it pink and make him beg us to change it back?_

_You. You can do that. I can't do the conjuring thing._

"And being a nuisance depends on what kind. I thought you all are supposed to be the hopeful kind, maybe Deok Hwa just asked difficult questions and held up the lesson."

The goblin stretches out on his bed.

"You're good at this parenting thing."

There's an odd inflection to his tone which even he cannot explain.

_Would Wang Yeo have turned out a good parent?_

A loose thought he does not block off.

His housemate moves to stand, closing shut the report book case.

"Maybe I subconsciously remember how I was parented."

* * *

Shin is drawn back into the past for another night. It was the parentless king who suffered with Park Jeong Hoon by his side, or perhaps he was brought up by the Minister and knew nobody else.

_In leaving to defend the borders, had he been wrong? How could he have been?_

The minister had not been unkind to the King, but he had given him false advice and the weak and foolish boy had taken it. If it was a case of nurture ruining his nature then perhaps the king who murdered would not have turned into a reaper.

"Yeo…" he tries the name on his tongue. But he had never called him that, ever. Always respectful, "Peiha," or some other formal, regal word.

And the child too, on his throne, had never called him by name. Only "Janggun," some name or other with reference to his occupation as a leader of some men and killer of others.

The king who directed that he leave for the borders and fight impossible battles and not return.

"Inform me of your honourable death and I shall inform you of my sorrow," words composed like poem following the furrow of his eyebrows creased by contemplation, delivered in a detached and regal manner befitting of a king.

A double-edged sword presented to him, with Park Jeong Hoon next to him, smirking about something.

_Had he been a fool to look at the boy-king in the eye and pretend he found sorrow?_

The minister became a father figure, advisor and king maker all in one and the young king was terrified – a characterisation of the child as naive and misled, a re-characterisation from a malignant and envy-ruined soul that he had looked like when he ordered them to their deaths.

What of his sweet, sweet sister then? The queen of the land who bled to death before his very eyes and the king who left before they died.

Had it been fear? Had the king cried himself to sleep, alone and afraid that night?

* * *

The goblin fell into another bout of unsettled sleep. A settlement into a routine, the ending of more chapters and being less and less reminded about it.

Calling his housemate's name casually, "Yeo!" and receiving a casual, "What!" back like they were friends. He could have been fooled. He let himself be fooled. Maybe he was happy to be fooled.

* * *

Everyone wants to be fooled, somehow. We'd like to think the best and have the best that way.

Kayo


	5. Freezing a moment

An acceleration of the timeline in relative terms that means little to immortal beings, but children have always seen things differently.

* * *

"Why don't you try that, samchon?"

The grim reaper blinks as he forms the potato pancake.

"What do you mean, Deok Hwa-ah?"

The little chaebol by his side is cutting apples for breakfast, they converse peacefully in an early morning.

"Like, treating my samchon as your brother. If the history thing bothers you so much that you've remembered it to think about it, we should try to find some definite answers."

"Hmm, but we already live together. And we get along like siblings do," he flips the pancakes in a smooth motion, pure theatrics because he knows Deok Hwa is watching.

"But samchon doesn't treat you like a younger sibling really, he treats you like a close friend. I'm sure no older brother tells his younger sister to 'screw off' even in a joking manner. At least, my classmates don't treat their sisters like that."

The child looks at him expectantly, so Yeo gives him a non-committal hum.

"Samchon!"

"Yes?"

His faux nephew gives him a face. "I know that's the sound you make when you're only agreeing to disagree. Don't do that."

Yeo only sighs. He pursued a policy of openness and honesty, in return he got a child who refused to let him off anything.

"Samchon, I really think that there are things that can be done. And I'm going to get you a phone and have you save goblin uncle as 'Orabeonii'. And then you can call him that."

He laughs as the pout on Deok Hwa's face becomes more pronounced.

But either way, the moment is lost.

The boy is focussed with his apples – "Ah! Look a rabbit, I made one samchon!"

A moment of domesticity and the grim reaper is happy to let him have it, "Cute, and probably delicious."

With another batch of pancakes sizzling over the fire, he takes up another paring knife and shows off a little more.

"Watch, a swan appears!"

Making staggered cuts, he fans out the apple slice into the wings, before butchering another slice into the swan head and inserting that into a small cut gap.

Deok Hwa as expected accepts the challenge, and by extension, being distracted.

* * *

_Fourteen and just on the cusp of life, past the unlucky thirteen and that must be a good omen_

At least, that's what his uncles would say. He's always surprised but not fully by new revelations. Something was odd with them from the day his grandfather brought him to a huge house and told him to wait on a man old enough to be his father.

But he didn't age, at all.

Even when he himself grew exponentially as children do, but his uncle didn't gain an extra wrinkle in the time he doubled in height.

And another odd uncle brought home by one, a homely, stately and oddly enough, employed uncle. References to god or some power and dark skirting conversations into the night that avoided including him.

To be told he lived with a Goblin and a Grim Reaper was then more acceptable than any other lie adults would have tried.

To be told to go and become a third-generation chaebol heir was more freeing than being told to study, but he too was tripped into studying somehow.

Deok Hwa is not entirely sure how it happened but he is sure the immortals did something.

He analyses the apple swan in front of him, well aware that the grim reaper flipping gamjajeon next to him is brimming with self-gratification at having diverted his nosy suggestions.

There's a soft 'click' sound in the background that signals his other uncle has woken up and come out of his bedroom. Accompanied by the soft shuffling of padded house slippers across the polished flooring, the uncoordinated sound of 'slap' 'slap' as he descends down the steps.

The teen chances a look over his shoulder and struggles to hide his snort of laughter at the sight of his uncle pretending to be an orchestra conductor or a flying goose. His arms are outstretched like a bird in flight.

"Deok Hwa, look at the knife when you're holding it."

Dutifully he goes back to crafting his swan.

* * *

Factually, he knew that the dokkaebi was up and walking out into the dining area. It didn't prepare him when the goblin popped up right behind him and asked, "What's for breakfast?"

A perfectly normal person could have made a simple observation from the cooked pancakes draining on oil paper to the side of the cooker area, but _no, he just had to appear with his teleportation flash_.

Yeo was startled, that was all, and a little oil splattered on his hand so his cry of surprise mingled with his pain. But there was no mistaking Deok Hwa's cry of pain.

Immediately he turned off the flame and looked the child over. The child's wide eyes met his, a small cut oozing a slow bead of blood as the knife clattered towards the –

Then the knife stopped.

The goblin immediately pulls him towards the sink and runs cool tap water over his hand.

"T-the knife, Shin." He receives a hum in response, "Yeah. Don't worry, I'll get it."

"Is this a stasis bubble?" _or have you just stopped the whole world's time?_

"Just a bubble in the dining room. It would take a lot of energy to freeze the whole world."

_Is your hand okay?_ The goblin thinks gently, slightly apologetic, _sorry, I shouldn't have popped up like that._

The grim reaper nods, before bringing his free hand up to close the tap.

_You can let go now. Just don't do that again when we're near the stove._

The goblin frowns.

"I haven't taken the knife yet, how can I let go?"

He feels a little heat creeping up his neck as he gestures at his burnt hand.

"Of my hand first… so we can go and get the knife."

Shin makes an 'o' of understanding, before awkwardly letting go of his grip on Yeo's hand.

Yeo tries for a smile, before picking up the knife and placing it onto the chopping board.

Then the goblin let go of his stasis bubble and the remnants of Deok Hwa's cry rebounded around the kitchen.

The child lets them guide him into the dining room.

"Shin, can you get antiseptic and a plaster?"

He returns in a jiffy and helps to clean the cut, before the grim reaper places a plaster over the wound.

Deok Hwa has an abashed look on his face as they ruffle his hair.

"You can start on the potato pancakes first. I think you've had quite enough of cutting for today?"

And the goblin helps with the serving while he turns his flame back on to finish the last batch.

He rinses off the blade and cuts up the apple into just wedges, no frills or swans.

The apples go to the table and the pancakes follow after.

It was another morning, and then when he brought the last plate out, they all sat down to eat.

* * *

A hint of sweetness I think. Not quite what I had planned, but homely scenes and the couple when you squint.

Kayo


End file.
